From the Desk of the Chief Ice Cream Dipper

We made our first batch of Young’s Farmstead Cheese on Wednesday July 8th!  It was a 140 pound batch of Jersey Jack cheese.  Jersey Jack is our version of Monterey Jack cheese, a mild cheese great for snacking and on sandwiches.

We’ve also made several batches of Colby, and Jersey Pepper Jack cheese – which is the Jersey Jack cheese with diced green, red and jalapeno peppers added.  We’ve also made some fresh cheese curds for home snacking.  The kitchen crew is working on the recipe for battered and deep-fried curds as a side choice in both restaurants.

We’re calling the fresh curds ‘squeakers’ because they squeak when you chew them.  It’s hard to describe, but you’ll see what we mean when you give them a try.  Squeakers are great for just snacking and are tasty on salads, soups or even right on a sandwich.

Both of our restaurants are already using the Jersey Pepper Jack cheese on various sandwiches.  By the end of August, all cheeseburgers will be made with Young’s Farmstead cheese. 

We’ve made a few batches of cheddar cheese.  The Cheddar cheese has to age a minimum of 60 days so we plan to have it for sale by mid October!  We look forward to sampling Young’s Farmstead Cheese to our Guests!   

We've received good feedback so far from our Guests -- mostly good, but there is room for improvement.  It seems each batch of cheese we make we learn a little more about the art of handmaking cheese.  So far, Mike and Stuart have made about 2,600 pounds of cheese!  A great start to our newest enterprise. 

Please let us know what you think -- we aim to make the best cheese we can with 100% of the milk produced by our cows on our farm.

Posted by Dan Young at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An update -- the cheese making equipment is on the way. We have a cheese making vat and related equipment coming from a Netherlands company. We looked for a long time at domestic equipment, but at the the European equipment looks to be elegant and efficient and will help us make delicious farmstead cheese. It fits in a smaller space and looks to be energy efficient the way we plan to use it. After all, cheese makers in Europe had been at it for a few hundred years before our country even got started!

 All the rest of the equipment -- lab equipment, walk-in cooler, water boiler, display case, and so forth are either here or due to arrive in the next two weeks (and was sourced in the US). We plan to have the equipment all installed and ready for production by the middle of June.

The first cheese types we will make include fresh cheese curds, cheddar cheese, colby cheese, and Jersey jack cheese. The curds, colby and jack cheese will be first up for sale as they do not require much, if any, aging. The cheddar cheese will be ready by about Labor Day this year.

The Young's Farmstead Cheese we make will be fresh milk 100% from our own Jersey cows. We do not treat our cows with rbST. Though no significant difference has been shown in the milk from treated and non-treated cows, we know our Guests expect us not to use rbST.

The Young family looks forward to this venture and can't wait to start sampling our very own Young's Farmstead Cheese to our Guests to get feedback and ideas.

Posted by Dan Young at 12:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We pretty much all get it.  When we buy local, we know our dollars stay more local.  That supports more jobs, more taxes paid locally, more economic activity stays local instead of going somewhere else.  That's a good thing.  It makes sense.  It's what we do when we can.

Today's economic conditions make buying local more important than ever.  We also all know that buying local just to buy local doesn't get it.  The business you buy from still has to give you value -- at the end of the day, you have to get a good deal for your money or you won't buy there again -- local or not.  That's just the way it works.  That's what makes America great and what makes it work -- every business has the opportunity to succeed and has the opportunity to fail.  If we're local, we want a chance from our local Customers -- we know we don't have the right to their business -- but we hope we get the opportunity to earn their business.

I was reviewing what Young's buys -- and who we buy from -- as I was looking over our 2008 numbers.  All things being equal, Young's has always chose to buy local.  But I'd never thought of looking at how much we buy local.  I knew our purchases are mostly local, but I was really amazed at how local.  I define local as within 60 miles of Young's.  Almost 90% of all purchases Young's made in 2008 were from local companies -- and more than 70% of that was from companies within 25 miles.  This includes good and services. 

Young's will continue to buy local.  We know that 80% or more of our business comes from local Customers -- it just makes good economic sense for us to support the business.

Below is a list of local businesses we buy from (in no particular order) -- and this list is not all of them -- I apologize to any I missed in making my list!  Yes, some of this list includes the local branch of a national or even international business -- but they all have local employees and businesses that pay taxes -- and I hope they all like ice cream and know of a good place to visit to get a dip or two of their favorite flavor!

I-Supply Company
Reiter Dairy
Hoskett Veterinary Service
Southwest Landmark
Smith's Rolloff Service
A&B Asphalt
Gordon Food Service
A-C Service
Par Striping
Montgomery Insurance
Meadowview Growers
All-Phase Electric
Bowman & Landess Turkeys
Brown Publishing
Maine's Towing
Mader Electric
Spradlin Bros Welding
Sysco Foods
Triec Electric
Bryce Hill
CED Electric
Catanzaro & Sons Produce
Champaign Excavating
Clark County Glass
Mad River Topsoil
Mike-Sells
Lavy Enterprises
Kaiser Fruit Farm
KW Burris
Janeco Janitor Supplies
Instantwhip Dayton
Home City Tent
Cox Ohio
Dayton Daily News
Custom Tire
Do It Best Harware
Holmes Printing
W.R Hackett Produce
Delille Oxygen
Dooley Septic Pro
Economy Linen
Ehman's Garage
Electric Eel
Ellenbee-Leggett
Klosterman's Bakery
Enting Water Conditioning
Ertel Publishing
Folck's Country Cuts
Pepsi-Cola Bottling
Phares Pumps
RE Skillings
Blessing Water
Remington Steel
Rieck Mechanical Services
Schockman Lumber
Sherriff-Goslin Roofing
Farm Credit Services
WBZI Radio
Waterways & Pathways
White Glove Cleaning'
Woeber's Mustard
Yellow Springs News
YMCA-Springfield
Carl's Mustard
Coca-Cola
Berner Screen Print
Security National Bank

Buy local when you can.  It helps all of us.

 Dan Young

Posted by Dan Young at 09:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)